Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's legal defense fund has received almost $500,000 in contributions.

(CNN) - Within hours of the Justice Department's announcement Tuesday that it would file a lawsuit challenging Arizona's tough new immigration law, thousands of contributions began flowing in to a legal defense fund set up by Gov. Jan Brewer to defend the bill she signed in April.

By the end of Wednesday, more than 6,300 donations totaling more than $300,000 had been processed through KeepAZsafe.com. More than 10,000 contributions totaling nearly $500,000 have rolled in to the fund since its inception in mid-June, according to an analysis conducted by the state and provided to CNN.

The donations, which range from $5 to $2,000, have come from every state in the country.

According to an executive order signed by Brewer on May 26, the contributions will be used for "the promotion of border security interests, the legal defense of the Governor related to Senate Bill 1070, and other interests of the state."

Arizona's immigration law, which orders immigrants to carry their alien registration documents at all times and requires police to question people if there's reason to suspect they're in the United States illegally, was signed into law on April 23.

soundoff(41 Responses)

Awesome job America!!! I've donated once – and when I get home from work I will dontae more!!! Keep The U.S. Safe!!!!!

July 8, 2010 06:40 pm at 6:40 pm |

Capt. Snarky

Go AZ and Governor Brewer! Fight the good fight. And way to go people for stepping up in defense of this ridiculous attack by the Open Borders Administration.....!!!!!!!!

July 8, 2010 06:41 pm at 6:41 pm |

Phil

Obama needs to be impeached and replaced by Jan Brewer!!! JB in '12!!!

July 8, 2010 06:42 pm at 6:42 pm |

st. louis jake

ha, ha, ha. that is soooo funny. the right-wing-nuts will sacrifice a testicle to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, but will pour out money like cheap wine at a pool party to "defend" a law that does nothing to defend the border, but alienates all americans of hispanic descent. These ditto-heads need to get a life.

July 8, 2010 06:46 pm at 6:46 pm |

Follow the Constitution

Just because the AZ law is popular doesn't mean it's right.

People's anger at the illegal immigration situation is understandable, but that doesn't justify violating the constitution, which you righties claim to love until it becomes inconvenient.

Go Justice Department!

July 8, 2010 06:46 pm at 6:46 pm |

Cynthia - Arkansas

I don't know when this country became so mean-spirited. If you offered the jobs that the Mexicans do to Americans they would laugh. The town I live in has a 3 poultry processing plants in the area. We have the largest population of Mexicans in Arkansas. If you deported them, you would have to shut down the plants and this town would be dust. NO ONE wants those jobs, believe me. Americans are spoiled and soft. These people work hard, under terrible conditions. I don't really like what has happened to this town, but you can't put the genie back in the bottle. The Republicans opened the flood gates for cheap labor to bust the unions. You have to pay the consequences. You can't have it both ways. These use to be immigration officials that came and checked the citizenship of the workers. As the big campaign donor to the Republican party paid their dues, Bush made sure the didn't come anywhere near here. We went from having a hand full of Mexicans, to whites being the minority in this town alone.

July 8, 2010 06:48 pm at 6:48 pm |

In the West

I don't know how the lawsuit will turn out, but if AZ's immigration law is judged to be unconstitutional, will you Arizonans stand by your country and constitution, or will you choose your xenophobia over your nation?

July 8, 2010 06:49 pm at 6:49 pm |

Abe

I am sending in $100 and a group of us are taking a trip down the Grand Canyon. I support AZ and before summers out will be spending money at the beach in Florida whether oil is there or not. I have always enjoyed the people and the scenery in these states and think they should be supported. Gov. Brewer is a real leader.

July 8, 2010 06:49 pm at 6:49 pm |

mj

Obama – Are you listening to the people? Something has to be done and your only answer is to "sue". Same response to the Oil Spill. Get off the bench and deal with the issues. Quit campaigning and entertaining and pay attention to what the majority of Americans want and expect – and it is not a courtroom.

July 8, 2010 06:56 pm at 6:56 pm |

Marcus

Think about any extremist from the right or the left or whatever who was caught doing a bad thing and had no money to pay a good lawyer.
Did he/she/they had any problem in finding people who were willing to give them some money to pay the bills of a good lawyer for he/she/them?
No.
Radicalism, in both sides of the political spectrum., has its supporters.

July 8, 2010 07:00 pm at 7:00 pm |

hobart

Unfortunately, what good intentions that might be behind this law are belied by Gov. Brewer's blatant racism. She proclaimed that most illegals are drug mules. And of course she realizes that her declaration gives her police force carte blanche to roust all latinos, legal or illegal, of suspected drug activity.

Hey Gov. Brewer, why do you violate the 9th commandment and lie to further your cause? Why do you hate America?

July 8, 2010 07:00 pm at 7:00 pm |

ZB

Apparently the Constitution only means something to Republican/TeaParty/Palinites when it says something they claim it says something they want. Maybe they should try reading Article 1 Section 8 before they jumpt to the 2nd Amendment.

Alternatively, how about each state enacting its own immigration laws beginning with people from Arizona not allowed to travel into, through or over any other state.

Needless to say, where were all the screaming Republican/TeaParty/Palinites on immigration when they controlled the government. As usual they are still big on mindless talk and short on meaningful and sensible action. zb

July 8, 2010 07:00 pm at 7:00 pm |

GI Joe

Save the money. Fine the people that employ the illegals.

Done, and money saved.

July 8, 2010 07:01 pm at 7:01 pm |

Paul

It is not about illegal immigration, it is a bout a racist old lady trying to have people's rights violated; this is about an entire community being singled out and discriminated just because they look Latinos. Stop this so called immigration law and ask Congress to fix our broken system without forgetting that with the exception of the native tribes, everyone else in America descends from immigrants. Wy should we punish hard working people for trying to make a living with dignity, is that a Christian principle or hypocrisy. We need a Comprehensive and Humane Immigration Reform now, we are one, divided we fall. God bless our land!

July 8, 2010 07:01 pm at 7:01 pm |

Ridgeway

Where do we send money to keep our borders safe from Washington and the Obama administration?

July 8, 2010 07:08 pm at 7:08 pm |

Rob in MO

No matter what you think of the Arizona Law, it clearly raises consitutional issues that must be addressed by the courts. The Attorney General was certainly right to challenge it. Not to do so would be negligent.

July 8, 2010 07:21 pm at 7:21 pm |

ib

I love this; way to go people let Obama know how wrong he is on this but he needs the illegal votes to get elected in 2012 and so he will do anything; say anything to make sure he gets them.

July 8, 2010 07:22 pm at 7:22 pm |

Nothing is too big to fail

This is great news. Mexico recieves more foreign aid than we spend on border enforcement.

Arizona will win this case and evry other state will adopt the same law

July 8, 2010 07:29 pm at 7:29 pm |

valwayne

Someone has to fight the insanity of the Obama administration! Obama wants a wide open border, amnesty, and voting rights for litterally tens of millions of illegal aliens. With an open border how many tens of millions more will come? How many tens or hundreds of millions do we have to take from around the world because we are a nation of immigrants? It made sense, not to Native Americans, when there were more buffalo here than people, but come on folks. Ronald Reagan gave amnesty to millions, but didn't close the border. Now we have 12-20 million more living here illegally, and Obama still won't control the border or protect average working Americans from the narco-trafficers in our border states. With all of our problems Obama has nothing better to do than sue AZ????

2) The way it differs is in a couple major provisions that not only facilitate, but practically mandate racial profiling.

And for those who will jump to the knee-jerk assumption that I must not have read the bill, I have. In fact, reading it is exactly how I know that what I'm saying is accurate. Take a look at Sec. 2. Title 11, chapter 7, Article 8B, and Sec. 2. Title 11, chapter 7, Article 8G to see the two biggest problem areas.

July 8, 2010 07:34 pm at 7:34 pm |

debbie

Gee why would you use such an unflattering photo of the Governor? I don't support the law but let's make the discussion about the issue, please. This photo makes her look like a madwoman, which I am sure she is not.

July 8, 2010 07:40 pm at 7:40 pm |

Henry Miller, Libertarian

Also cool: About a quarter of the $434 thousand received so far has come from Arizona residents, as is to be expected, and putting Arizona in first place for total state-wide contributions. But second place goes to the state whose politicians act like they're so outraged by Arizona's law, California, with about 16% of the total.

This proves, as if it needs any more proving, that the country's politicians are way out of touch with the voters.

July 8, 2010 07:42 pm at 7:42 pm |

Debbie

Not really very much $$$. Not even close to what it will cost the citizens of Arizona. And that's just for the lawsuit. Not to mention declines in tourism etc.